


Unmasked

by Ahmerst



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: M/M, Post-Clear's good route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 19:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahmerst/pseuds/Ahmerst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With only Aoba having seen Clear without his mask before, Noiz takes it upon himself to be the second to find out what hides beneath it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unmasked

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt taken from tumblr asks, this one for someone finding out what Clear's face looks like (aside from Aoba).

“So what’s wrong with it?” is the first question Noiz asks Clear when they’re alone together.

Their meeting is more coincidence than not, Clear tucked in the narrow alley near the Heibon Junk Shop as he waits for Aoba to be let off work, one hand wrapped around his umbrella, the other holding a fried treat from a vendor.

And Noiz… well, Clear can’t say for sure why Noiz is there, but there’s a soft kind of whirring in his head as he calculates the reasons.

“What’s wrong with what?” Clear asks, and his gears click smoothly to a halt as he decides Noiz is here for Aoba as well.

“Your face. I mean, it’s covered up like that all the time. I’m taking a guess that it’s all kinds of fucked up, but you sound pretty chipper under there for someone who probably has a Quasimodo mug.”

Clear smiles, realizes it’s covered by his mask, and keeps smiling anyway. He sets his umbrella down so it’s tipped against the wall, reaches up and touches at his mask. His gloved fingers stay clear of the fasteners on it, instead skimming over the ridges and divots.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that this isn’t his face, that he can’t keep this mask on forever.

“You’re a quiet one today, huh? If it’s really that bad, maybe I’ll fix it up if you show it to me. Couldn’t be too much work, and it might even be half-interesting to see what your circuity looks like.”

That jolts Clear into speaking.

“I’m sorry, I’m not meaning to keep so silent,” he says, and it comes out too fast for his own liking. His hand continues to rest on his mask, and he shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “I was thinking too hard.”

“Processors a little overloaded?” Noiz asks, taking a step closer for every word that comes out of his mouth, hands slipping into his pockets.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean by that,” Clear says. He keeps his voice light and airy, like there isn’t antifreeze spiking through him as his body warms.

He’s never told anyone but Aoba what he is. How he bleeds oil, and in the place of veins he has hundreds of wires. That when he breathes it’s to expel the heated air from his system, a cooling mechanism.

Aoba promised never to tell, that it was his secret to share. He assured Clear of that with a fond pet and a small, honest smile. The kind that said he truly wouldn’t reveal Clear’s origins to anyone.

“I know I’m no blue-haired boy wonder,” Noiz starts, and his head is cocked to the side in what Clear thinks might be interest, “but I’ve been around electronics enough to know a robot when I see one. Had you scoped out before even Aoba knew.”

Noiz’s hands reach up to cup at the sides of Clear’s mask, fingertips resting light on the latches that keep it fastened to his face.

Clear doesn’t flinch, doesn’t make to pull away or shake Noiz off. He stands there frozen instead, recounts each and every memory he has stored on his hard drive of Aoba’s assurances. That he’s okay, that he’s normal.

But it’s hard to erase the many more times he’s been old told otherwise, instructed to cover his face because there’s something wrong with it.

Something he’s sure can’t be fixed.

When the mask slips from his face and Noiz gets a good look, the first word he murmurs is a soft, “Huh.”

“How bad is it?” Clear asks after several terrible seconds of quiet, several terrible seconds of Noiz’s face near his, gaze scrutinizing what’s before him.

“Well, shit,” Noiz says, and breath snorts from his nose like he might laugh. “Never took you for having a sense of humor. At least, not on purpose.”

“Of course I have a sense of humor,” Clear says, and he reaches up a hand to touch instinctively at the defects on his face, fingertips skimming the two small beauty marks below his lip. “But this isn’t a laughing matter.”

The last few words come out as the low whine of a child teetering on the edge of upset, and Noiz’s thumb smooths over where his fingers had just been. He taps the edge of a nail against each mark once, clucks his tongue during the inspection.

“And here you had me really going, thinking you had some Terminator shit going on,” Noiz says, and his hand doesn’t leave Clear’s face.

His fingers trace along Clear’s jawline instead, touch light before it becomes a grip, clutching at Clear’s jaw and turning his head this way and that. He leans in close, closer than he needs to, and Clear’s sensors register Noiz’s breath at an even seventy-four degrees Fahrenheit when it puffs against his skin.

His tongue sits at ninety-eight when it laps a single time at the twin marks, warm and wet before Noiz is drawing back too quickly for Clear to stop him, before Clear can get over the way his core flares with heat and his circuits fire.

“What a waste of time,” Noiz says, and he’s stealing the fried treat from Clear’s hand then, taking a bite as he passes through the alleyway. “Maybe I’ll crack you open sometime and see if you’re any better inside.”

Clear watches Noiz until he turns the corner, hears his steps as they fade to faint thumps. He stands there even when Noiz is gone, eyes staring at a spot where now no one is, his core still hot and hand clutching at something that isn’t in it anymore.

“Oi, there you are,” comes a voice that startles him. “Almost didn’t recognize you without your mask,” it jokes.

It’s Aoba, whose shadow casts itself into the alleyway as he stands in the mouth of it, hands in his pockets and bag slung over his shoulder.

“Ah, Aoba,” Clear calls back, hand grabbing for his umbrella and eyes looking to where the snack he brought should be before he recalls it’s been taken. “I was just about to come get you from work.”

“You don’t hang out in the alley to do that. It’s weird, even for you,” Aoba says, and in spite of his words, the smile on his face is warm as he holds out a hand to Clear.

Aoba’s smile fades slightly as Clear refastens the mask to his face before emerging from the alley, but he doesn’t say a word about it. He takes Clear’s hand in his instead, gives it a fond squeeze and presses his lips gentle to Clear’s mask where the twin dots on his face are.

“Come on, I’m starving,” Aoba says, and as Clear matches his steps to Aoba’s and squeezes back, he thinks maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he took his mask off more often.


End file.
